Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday slammed the appointment of an RSS-backed media agency as the sole news source for state-run broadcaster Prasar Bharati. He accused the Central government of “saffronisation of news”.

Pinarayi Vijayan alleged that this was a move to bring Doordarshan and Akashvani into the folds of the Sangh Parivar

In an official statement, the CM said that appointing Hindustan Samachar as the news source for the state-run broadcaster by terminating services of agencies like PTI and UNI amounted to “saffronisation of news”.

The Chief Minister was referring to the Centre’s decision to appoint Hindustan Samachar as the sole news source for Prasar Bharati which operates the Doordarshan TV network and Akashvani, also called All India Radio.

Pinarayi Vijayan alleged that this was a move to bring Doordarshan and Akashvani into the folds of the Sangh Parivar and was therefore a threat to democracy.

In his statement, the Kerala CM claimed, “Hindustan Samachar was founded by RSS leader Shivram Shankar Apte, also the founder general secretary of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and it has always worked for the Sangh Parivar.”

“The Sangh Parivar has been trying to keep Prasar Bharti under its control ever since it came to power,” he added.

Besides that, Prasar Bharti showed live RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s Vijayadashami speech, but did not broadcast the Independence day speech of the Chief Minister of Tripura, he claimed.